Podcast Transcript - Building Better CMOs
Snap CMO Grace Kao
Grace and Greg talk about following great leaders, marketing to youth audiences, and why embracing failure can be essential to one's success.
GRACE KAO: If I'm succeeding all the time, then you know what, I think I'm not pushing myself enough and I'm not actually taking enough risks or I'm not innovating and I'm kind of like settling.
That has been for me just on a personal level, as someone who is a perfectionist, that's been helping me not get stuck in the mud and just focus on to keep iterating and to keep going.
That has been for me just on a personal level, as someone who is a perfectionist, that's been helping me not get stuck in the mud and just focus on to keep iterating and to keep going.
GREG STUART: Grace Kao, welcome to Building Better CMOs.
GRACE: Hello, hello. Thank you so much, Greg, for having me.
GREG: Yes. Very excited for this. You're going to be one of the energetic ones, I think. Is that right? Is that what we're going to expect today?
GRACE: [laugh] I hope so. If I want to represent Snap, I better.
GREG: Good, good. And a product that exciting, of course, of course.
GRACE: Oh, thank you so much.
GREG: So listen, what the audience may or may not have figured out — because all this has not been very long — but you are the CMO. And what's interesting, you came into the company not a CMO, but then made CMO boom bang right away.
GRACE: Oh, feeling very, very blessed and honored to have that role.
GREG: And what a fun product it would get to be, right?
GRACE: Oh, yeah.
GREG: I mean, with the R&D that you guys are doing, the new changes in that, the appealing to that sort of audience, the intersection of ... I mean, everything's kind of going on with it: AR, AI.
GRACE: Yes, yes. Don't forget, we also have Map, we have chat, we have video. Essentially, we have what I like to call a super app. I mean, we have five tabs and each tab has an experience in itself. But yeah, thank you so much, Greg. You basically listed all the reasons why I came to Snap.
GREG: I said this to you before. I have two daughters now, they're in their mid-20, but they basically got their phones the year that Snap was started.
GRACE: Yes.
GREG: And they have Snap scores of over 650,000.
GRACE: Excellent.
GREG: Which is the most insane thing. I don't know whether the listeners know, that means they have either sent or received — this is a Snap score — they have sent or received 650,000 Snaps.
GRACE: Amazing. Amazing. Greg, tell them we love them so much.
GREG: Actually, I went to the office. I went to the office there in New York at one point and they just gave me all sorts of tchotkes. I had ghosts and they gave me everything for Snap. So the kids were very excited about that. They were young at the point.
GRACE: Yes. Excellent.
GREG: Okay. So you come in there [as a] marketer and you're kind of, I don't know, unique, but you've been at some very pivotal moments, I think, in the industry. So you were at Yahoo back during some of the good years.
GRACE: Yeah, definitely. When we launched the Yahoo app and yeah, no, I loved Yahoo. Great company.
GREG: Exactly. And then besides the agency background before that, but then also too, you were at Pandora.
GRACE: Yes.
GREG: And then you went to Instagram, then Spotify.
GRACE: I know. I've been around the apps.
GREG: I don't know if that's how I was going to put it. But I mean, listen, those are all very interesting products and companies for the moment in time of where the world's going.
GRACE: Oh, thank you. I again, feel very, very lucky that I've gotten to work at these really wonderful, wonderful companies and amazing brands. I mean, really, I was very fortunate to have those opportunities.
GREG: What's your filter for picking where you go? Do you have [one] ?
GRACE: Yeah, a little bit.
GREG: I wonder if there's a thesis or a theory you have in how you manage and run your career, given the places you've been. I don't know. What do you think?
GRACE: Oh, thank you for this question. I love this question. I love following people and people that I love working for. Believing in my boss is a big one for me.
GREG: And that boss to believe and trust in you too is a big deal.
GRACE: Correct.
GREG: Because they give you latitude faster.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. Or just being able to have the same values. So of course, you want to go to a company that you believe in the company values, but believing in the people and understand that the people have the same values as you do, that has always been important to me.
GRACE: Hello, hello. Thank you so much, Greg, for having me.
GREG: Yes. Very excited for this. You're going to be one of the energetic ones, I think. Is that right? Is that what we're going to expect today?
GRACE: [laugh] I hope so. If I want to represent Snap, I better.
GREG: Good, good. And a product that exciting, of course, of course.
GRACE: Oh, thank you so much.
GREG: So listen, what the audience may or may not have figured out — because all this has not been very long — but you are the CMO. And what's interesting, you came into the company not a CMO, but then made CMO boom bang right away.
GRACE: Oh, feeling very, very blessed and honored to have that role.
GREG: And what a fun product it would get to be, right?
GRACE: Oh, yeah.
GREG: I mean, with the R&D that you guys are doing, the new changes in that, the appealing to that sort of audience, the intersection of ... I mean, everything's kind of going on with it: AR, AI.
GRACE: Yes, yes. Don't forget, we also have Map, we have chat, we have video. Essentially, we have what I like to call a super app. I mean, we have five tabs and each tab has an experience in itself. But yeah, thank you so much, Greg. You basically listed all the reasons why I came to Snap.
GREG: I said this to you before. I have two daughters now, they're in their mid-20, but they basically got their phones the year that Snap was started.
GRACE: Yes.
GREG: And they have Snap scores of over 650,000.
GRACE: Excellent.
GREG: Which is the most insane thing. I don't know whether the listeners know, that means they have either sent or received — this is a Snap score — they have sent or received 650,000 Snaps.
GRACE: Amazing. Amazing. Greg, tell them we love them so much.
GREG: Actually, I went to the office. I went to the office there in New York at one point and they just gave me all sorts of tchotkes. I had ghosts and they gave me everything for Snap. So the kids were very excited about that. They were young at the point.
GRACE: Yes. Excellent.
GREG: Okay. So you come in there [as a] marketer and you're kind of, I don't know, unique, but you've been at some very pivotal moments, I think, in the industry. So you were at Yahoo back during some of the good years.
GRACE: Yeah, definitely. When we launched the Yahoo app and yeah, no, I loved Yahoo. Great company.
GREG: Exactly. And then besides the agency background before that, but then also too, you were at Pandora.
GRACE: Yes.
GREG: And then you went to Instagram, then Spotify.
GRACE: I know. I've been around the apps.
GREG: I don't know if that's how I was going to put it. But I mean, listen, those are all very interesting products and companies for the moment in time of where the world's going.
GRACE: Oh, thank you. I again, feel very, very lucky that I've gotten to work at these really wonderful, wonderful companies and amazing brands. I mean, really, I was very fortunate to have those opportunities.
GREG: What's your filter for picking where you go? Do you have [one] ?
GRACE: Yeah, a little bit.
GREG: I wonder if there's a thesis or a theory you have in how you manage and run your career, given the places you've been. I don't know. What do you think?
GRACE: Oh, thank you for this question. I love this question. I love following people and people that I love working for. Believing in my boss is a big one for me.
GREG: And that boss to believe and trust in you too is a big deal.
GRACE: Correct.
GREG: Because they give you latitude faster.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. Or just being able to have the same values. So of course, you want to go to a company that you believe in the company values, but believing in the people and understand that the people have the same values as you do, that has always been important to me.
Marketing to youth audiences
GRACE: I would say the second thing is I have always — if you look at those brands that you listed — I have always been fascinated with youth and that generation. Working with a youth audience has been always so fun and fulfilling for me.
GREG: Why, Grace? Just, I don't know. Go one more step on that. Maybe the answer's obvious. I'm just curious.
GRACE: Yeah. I know. Greg, I have teenagers now as kids and I think you probably ... Thank you for mentioning your kids as well. Are they just not the most amazing human beings ever? I mean, on the brink of being an adult, filled with confidence and creativity, optimism, positivity, they're willing to take risks and to explore and find themselves. It's just such a magical time. And you're catching me because I am a mother of two teenagers, and so I'm just savoring this moment right now. And I think I see that, on the other side, as a marketer who's trying to engage with them, I feel like I get so much inspiration from them as an audience. That has also been a consistent, I guess, element.
GREG: But Grace, to be fair and not to get off point here, but you might be one of the few parents who is excited about teenage years for their children. [laugh] I'm not really sure ...
GRACE: Oh, there were dark times.
GREG: Okay. Okay. Okay.
GRACE: Yes. I've definitely got eye rolls and door slams, for sure. For sure.
GREG: When my daughter turned, when one of them turned 21, 22, the twins are 25 now. When they turned 21, 22, my daughter disclosed to us that there was a point in time where, when she was 15, she had stolen the Tesla.
GRACE: Oh, Greg. [laugh] Creativity!
GREG: And then —
GRACE: Willing to take risks.
GREG: Drove it to a place she shouldn't have gone to buy cigarettes. And I pointed out to her —
GRACE: So confident.
GREG: I go, all three of those bad, one of them's a felony. [laugh] So just to be really clear with you. But we didn't know. We didn't find out until ... I mean, she did at 15 and we didn't find out that she was 21, 22. So I don't know. Teenage years are ... Listen, I do appreciate their struggle in those years. How's that? And it's a complicated, interesting time, even as I pointed out to you, because my kids were basically ... [They] got their first phones the year, I believe, right about the year that Snap was launched.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. I would say it's an interesting time, an age generation, every generation. But I would say it's a fun audience. And I think that is also what I've chased in my career as well. I love going to brands that are fun, are positive, make people feel good, whether it's music or Snaps, or whether it's visuals.
GREG: Why, Grace? Just, I don't know. Go one more step on that. Maybe the answer's obvious. I'm just curious.
GRACE: Yeah. I know. Greg, I have teenagers now as kids and I think you probably ... Thank you for mentioning your kids as well. Are they just not the most amazing human beings ever? I mean, on the brink of being an adult, filled with confidence and creativity, optimism, positivity, they're willing to take risks and to explore and find themselves. It's just such a magical time. And you're catching me because I am a mother of two teenagers, and so I'm just savoring this moment right now. And I think I see that, on the other side, as a marketer who's trying to engage with them, I feel like I get so much inspiration from them as an audience. That has also been a consistent, I guess, element.
GREG: But Grace, to be fair and not to get off point here, but you might be one of the few parents who is excited about teenage years for their children. [laugh] I'm not really sure ...
GRACE: Oh, there were dark times.
GREG: Okay. Okay. Okay.
GRACE: Yes. I've definitely got eye rolls and door slams, for sure. For sure.
GREG: When my daughter turned, when one of them turned 21, 22, the twins are 25 now. When they turned 21, 22, my daughter disclosed to us that there was a point in time where, when she was 15, she had stolen the Tesla.
GRACE: Oh, Greg. [laugh] Creativity!
GREG: And then —
GRACE: Willing to take risks.
GREG: Drove it to a place she shouldn't have gone to buy cigarettes. And I pointed out to her —
GRACE: So confident.
GREG: I go, all three of those bad, one of them's a felony. [laugh] So just to be really clear with you. But we didn't know. We didn't find out until ... I mean, she did at 15 and we didn't find out that she was 21, 22. So I don't know. Teenage years are ... Listen, I do appreciate their struggle in those years. How's that? And it's a complicated, interesting time, even as I pointed out to you, because my kids were basically ... [They] got their first phones the year, I believe, right about the year that Snap was launched.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. I would say it's an interesting time, an age generation, every generation. But I would say it's a fun audience. And I think that is also what I've chased in my career as well. I love going to brands that are fun, are positive, make people feel good, whether it's music or Snaps, or whether it's visuals.
Workplace happiness and values alignment
GRACE: At the end of the day, are we making people happy? Are we connecting people? I guess those are things I'm still pretty positive and optimistic on. And if you look at those brands, I think that I've always chased those kind of companies.
GREG: Yeah. So your career trajectory is work with people you like, whose values you align to. I think that's critical. And I love the idea of working in exciting new development spaces. It's always going to be probably the youth. I don't know that they're creating new things for us old people as much. [laugh] But interesting dynamics. No, I get that. Yeah. No, listen, I was early on the internet, loved mobile, super excited about AI. I even have another podcast on AI. So I totally agree with that. Listen, I want to call out to your point on values. I actually think that's a bigger deal than people give credit to.
GRACE: Yeah.
GREG: I met a guy a number of years ago when I lived out in the Valley. When I went out there, I was out there. I was a dot-com guy. When I went out to the Valley, I met a guy, he had started 30 businesses at that point in his career. And I asked him, it felt like a dumb question, but I was just curious, what's the singular thing that you focus on in starting a company? And he didn't even hesitate. He goes, Know the values of your partners.
And I think where that's interesting, it's not just a moral judgment, although that has a lot to do with it. I need to make sure that people want to play the game the same way. But the issue is too, I think, are we headed in the same direction? Are we there in the world for the same reason? Are we there to grow a business? Are we there to sell? In that case, sell a business, grow a business, to create something new, a foundation for the industry, are we there to change the world. So what's the values? What's the orientation we're going after? It's very important.
GRACE: Yeah. And I would say what you put in reflects what comes out. When I have been in work situations where I did not feel happy, actually truly just happy because I wasn't feeling fulfilled, my work showed.
GREG: Oh, do you think so? That's funny.
GRACE: And I think in situations where I'm loving the people I work with, I believe in what I'm working on, when I'm actually happy, my work is better. I think there's these laws of physics that happen. What you put in is what comes out. And I think you can see that. I don't think that's unique to me. I think that's probably human nature.
GREG: I think it's foundational. Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit of the X factors you can put it differently.
GRACE: Yeah.
GREG: Yeah. So your career trajectory is work with people you like, whose values you align to. I think that's critical. And I love the idea of working in exciting new development spaces. It's always going to be probably the youth. I don't know that they're creating new things for us old people as much. [laugh] But interesting dynamics. No, I get that. Yeah. No, listen, I was early on the internet, loved mobile, super excited about AI. I even have another podcast on AI. So I totally agree with that. Listen, I want to call out to your point on values. I actually think that's a bigger deal than people give credit to.
GRACE: Yeah.
GREG: I met a guy a number of years ago when I lived out in the Valley. When I went out there, I was out there. I was a dot-com guy. When I went out to the Valley, I met a guy, he had started 30 businesses at that point in his career. And I asked him, it felt like a dumb question, but I was just curious, what's the singular thing that you focus on in starting a company? And he didn't even hesitate. He goes, Know the values of your partners.
And I think where that's interesting, it's not just a moral judgment, although that has a lot to do with it. I need to make sure that people want to play the game the same way. But the issue is too, I think, are we headed in the same direction? Are we there in the world for the same reason? Are we there to grow a business? Are we there to sell? In that case, sell a business, grow a business, to create something new, a foundation for the industry, are we there to change the world. So what's the values? What's the orientation we're going after? It's very important.
GRACE: Yeah. And I would say what you put in reflects what comes out. When I have been in work situations where I did not feel happy, actually truly just happy because I wasn't feeling fulfilled, my work showed.
GREG: Oh, do you think so? That's funny.
GRACE: And I think in situations where I'm loving the people I work with, I believe in what I'm working on, when I'm actually happy, my work is better. I think there's these laws of physics that happen. What you put in is what comes out. And I think you can see that. I don't think that's unique to me. I think that's probably human nature.
GREG: I think it's foundational. Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit of the X factors you can put it differently.
GRACE: Yeah.
What marketing means at Snap
GREG: So let's talk about that. Before maybe we go into the variety of different Snap products, I think I want to talk about too, but I don't know, what does it mean to do marketing for Snap? Don't the teenagers just sell it themselves to you? [laugh] Aren't they all just trading once you're on a streak, they force usage. And you have new products. I don't know. What is marketing for Snap, by the way?
GRACE: When I look at Snap, we have many different audiences. Yes, we have consumers. And actually one of the biggest myths about Snap is I think 50% of people on Snap are actually over 25, by the way. But we also have business audiences. So we are an advertising platform. And so talking to marketers and advertisers are also a big, big audience for us. And then we also have developers, right? So we want people to develop amazing experiences, whether it's AR or AI on our platform as well. So marketing with Snap means actually talking to developers, businesses, consumers, and obviously creators who create content on. So I feel like I have a pretty ... Talking about fun, I feel like I have a pretty fun job. Those are really, again, fun audiences to talk to.
GREG: Right, right, right. I remember too when you kind of introduced the business to advertisers probably before your time. I don't know if you were in Cannes at this point, but they did a giant Ferris wheel. Do you remember that?
GRACE: Oh yeah. I was very envious. I was not at Snap at the time. I was —
GREG: Brilliant. It was brilliant.
GRACE: But it is very, I would say, on brand for Snap.
GREG: 100%. So my question was going to be, can you disclose to us what exciting thing you're going to do for Cannes Lions this year?
GRACE: Oh, you know I can't say anything like that, Greg.
GREG: Okay. I tried to ask. Okay.
GRACE: I love it. I would have done as well.
GREG: But is marketing for Snap, is that, you and your team, are you focused on customer experience, you're focused on transactional, getting people to either increase activity or even to download the app. God forbid they don't have it. Is it a brand message? I don't know. What are you doing there?
GRACE: Yeah, I think at the highest level it would be in the sense of, look, we know that whether you're a business or a consumer or a developer, you aren't going to only be on one platform, right? You're going to be on multiple platforms. And so what we hope to carve out in people's lives is a specific place and role in your life. From a consumer standpoint and on a brand level, it is a place where we feel that Snapchat is a place where you can truly be yourself. You do not have to overly curate. You don't have to plan out what you're going to do. You can just Snap how you feel at any given moment, you can Snap anyone you feel like at the moment, or you can see interesting content.
GRACE: When I look at Snap, we have many different audiences. Yes, we have consumers. And actually one of the biggest myths about Snap is I think 50% of people on Snap are actually over 25, by the way. But we also have business audiences. So we are an advertising platform. And so talking to marketers and advertisers are also a big, big audience for us. And then we also have developers, right? So we want people to develop amazing experiences, whether it's AR or AI on our platform as well. So marketing with Snap means actually talking to developers, businesses, consumers, and obviously creators who create content on. So I feel like I have a pretty ... Talking about fun, I feel like I have a pretty fun job. Those are really, again, fun audiences to talk to.
GREG: Right, right, right. I remember too when you kind of introduced the business to advertisers probably before your time. I don't know if you were in Cannes at this point, but they did a giant Ferris wheel. Do you remember that?
GRACE: Oh yeah. I was very envious. I was not at Snap at the time. I was —
GREG: Brilliant. It was brilliant.
GRACE: But it is very, I would say, on brand for Snap.
GREG: 100%. So my question was going to be, can you disclose to us what exciting thing you're going to do for Cannes Lions this year?
GRACE: Oh, you know I can't say anything like that, Greg.
GREG: Okay. I tried to ask. Okay.
GRACE: I love it. I would have done as well.
GREG: But is marketing for Snap, is that, you and your team, are you focused on customer experience, you're focused on transactional, getting people to either increase activity or even to download the app. God forbid they don't have it. Is it a brand message? I don't know. What are you doing there?
GRACE: Yeah, I think at the highest level it would be in the sense of, look, we know that whether you're a business or a consumer or a developer, you aren't going to only be on one platform, right? You're going to be on multiple platforms. And so what we hope to carve out in people's lives is a specific place and role in your life. From a consumer standpoint and on a brand level, it is a place where we feel that Snapchat is a place where you can truly be yourself. You do not have to overly curate. You don't have to plan out what you're going to do. You can just Snap how you feel at any given moment, you can Snap anyone you feel like at the moment, or you can see interesting content.
Snap Map and the desire for connection
GRACE: What's so fascinating is our Map is one of, I think, the second most used map app in the world. I have to double check on [that] .
GREG: I would so not be surprised. I'm super annoyed that I don't have a map for mine and my friends. [laugh] No, really, I'm serious because I've watched my kids. I mean, we can show up. Where did we go last year? But I often will look at them and see where their friends are, but my friends aren't on it to the same degree.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. And really it's just incredible. The Map isn't to get you from A to B. It's actually, people just want to feel connected and know where —
GREG: I just want to know that you're in my [neighborhood] . That's what I mean. I would love to know that I have a friend of any loose connection anywhere in the area where I'm at.
GRACE: All I do is look at where my kids are on the online map.
GREG: Oh yeah, do you? Okay. [laugh]
GRACE: But I think to answer your question, I think we feel like we have a very unique place for people where they can be themselves and make it really super easy.
GREG: It's funny that generation too. I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but it's funny too, that generation is really okay with ... I think a lot of people in other generations think, oh, that's a privacy thing. I don't want people to see where I'm at. But it's like, they don't hesitate.
GRACE: No, no. I think this generation, and even for, I see it even ourselves, I think post-Covid, I think people feel the desire to be connected all the time and to know where each other are at. And so for consumers, we really want to feel like there's a place that you can be yourself. For businesses, it is the same thing. We know you're going to advertise and market on other platforms. And what we hope, again, on Snapchat, we can provide a unique platform that you can't get from anywhere else. For example, this year we launched sponsored Snaps, right? The fact that ... I mean, what's actually really interesting, Greg, I love to ... With AI, what's not going to be chat, by the way? What's not going to be messaging?
GREG: Everything. Yeah. Yeah. The Microsoft people have been pushing a concept of conversational marketing.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. And so for us, because we have, again, a very dominant ... We are Snapchat and the thought of advertisers and marketers that you can use chat now to connect with your audience or also we have promoted places or use Map where you can actually show locations of where you are and drive people to your physical locations. So I think that that's kind of what we see as opportunities for both businesses and consumers. And again, for creators, again, we feel like you can make money by just being yourself and offer another place for people to get to know you more. So those are just some examples of what I do every single day.
GREG: Yeah. And I think, listen, even one of your previous employers, Meta, is really big on the whole, all the chat dynamics and advertising in those environments. So I agree with you that I think that's a very big trend.
GRACE: Yeah. I got a stat for you, Greg.
GREG: Okay, go.
GRACE: In one quarter, there were 880 billion chats on Snapchat. I mean, that just tells you —
GREG: What's the number? How many? Say again. How many?
GRACE: 880 billion chats in one quarter on Snapchat.
GREG: That's crazy.
GRACE: And that just, again, shows just people's desire to connect and just be talking to their friends. Yeah.
GREG: Maps and everything else. Yeah, I think my daughters did 10% of that. Okay.
GRACE: [laugh]
GREG: I'm sorry, that would be crazy.
GRACE: Greg, you're the best. I love this podcast.
GREG: I've been making fun of my daughters. They're fun. Let's see if they'll ... what would be crazy, if they actually listen to this. If they know that I've added them for criminal felony activities on a podcast, we'll find out. I'm sure they don't listen, because nobody listens to Dad, but that's a whole nother thing.
GRACE: Oh, they do. I think they do.
GREG: Yeah, maybe secretly, maybe secret. Okay. Listen, so also too, I'm very excited about Specs because Specs is coming out again, you're doing a relaunch of Specs. And listen, let's be fair. Meta, I think, has finally, finally somebody's had what I'd consider bordering on crazy success with glasses, right? I mean, Specs was before. Google Glass tried. Some other people have tried. Apple tried their whole thing. I don't know what the hell that was, Vision Pro. But so you're coming out with the next-generation Specs, correct?
GRACE: Yes. I can't say too much about it, but I can say yes.
GREG: Darn it. I was hoping for disclosure, maybe a picture, you could put them on.
GRACE: Oh my gosh. I wish. Will you have me back? I would be happy to do that.
GREG: Oh really? Okay.
GRACE: Can we ... Basically, look at me fishing for another invitation to come back. Listeners, you've heard it here. Greg will have me back.
GREG: I know, I think —
GRACE: For real, I would love to come back and —
GREG: Promise made. Exactly. There we go. Okay. So do we have a date for new Specs?
GRACE: I cannot reveal yet. But it's coming soon. We're super excited. And let's just say, I think we're going to have a really different experience that I don't see right now.
GREG: That you don't see. Okay. Okay.
GRACE: In the market right now, what's available now. Well, I'll just leave it as that.
GREG: I have the Meta glasses. It's a really good first-generation product. I mean, it's really good. And I'm fine to experiment with all the other stuff. That's all fine. It doesn't matter to me, but it's pretty ... I don't know. I like it. I think it serves a role in my life, for sure, which only makes it available for everybody else to create a product. That's part of my point there.
GRACE: Yeah. I think for us on the Snap side and how we're seeing wearables is again, how do you make technology more human? How can it more seamlessly fit into your life versus you're adapting to the technology? And I think we're really excited to ... We've been in this space. I know we're launching Specs, but this is our fifth generation of it. We've been actually interating for the past decade on it and now we're ready. We're ready.
GREG: Yeah. Yeah. And I think consumers are ready too. I think it does make a lot of sense, not having seen it.
GREG: I would so not be surprised. I'm super annoyed that I don't have a map for mine and my friends. [laugh] No, really, I'm serious because I've watched my kids. I mean, we can show up. Where did we go last year? But I often will look at them and see where their friends are, but my friends aren't on it to the same degree.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. And really it's just incredible. The Map isn't to get you from A to B. It's actually, people just want to feel connected and know where —
GREG: I just want to know that you're in my [neighborhood] . That's what I mean. I would love to know that I have a friend of any loose connection anywhere in the area where I'm at.
GRACE: All I do is look at where my kids are on the online map.
GREG: Oh yeah, do you? Okay. [laugh]
GRACE: But I think to answer your question, I think we feel like we have a very unique place for people where they can be themselves and make it really super easy.
GREG: It's funny that generation too. I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but it's funny too, that generation is really okay with ... I think a lot of people in other generations think, oh, that's a privacy thing. I don't want people to see where I'm at. But it's like, they don't hesitate.
GRACE: No, no. I think this generation, and even for, I see it even ourselves, I think post-Covid, I think people feel the desire to be connected all the time and to know where each other are at. And so for consumers, we really want to feel like there's a place that you can be yourself. For businesses, it is the same thing. We know you're going to advertise and market on other platforms. And what we hope, again, on Snapchat, we can provide a unique platform that you can't get from anywhere else. For example, this year we launched sponsored Snaps, right? The fact that ... I mean, what's actually really interesting, Greg, I love to ... With AI, what's not going to be chat, by the way? What's not going to be messaging?
GREG: Everything. Yeah. Yeah. The Microsoft people have been pushing a concept of conversational marketing.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. And so for us, because we have, again, a very dominant ... We are Snapchat and the thought of advertisers and marketers that you can use chat now to connect with your audience or also we have promoted places or use Map where you can actually show locations of where you are and drive people to your physical locations. So I think that that's kind of what we see as opportunities for both businesses and consumers. And again, for creators, again, we feel like you can make money by just being yourself and offer another place for people to get to know you more. So those are just some examples of what I do every single day.
GREG: Yeah. And I think, listen, even one of your previous employers, Meta, is really big on the whole, all the chat dynamics and advertising in those environments. So I agree with you that I think that's a very big trend.
GRACE: Yeah. I got a stat for you, Greg.
GREG: Okay, go.
GRACE: In one quarter, there were 880 billion chats on Snapchat. I mean, that just tells you —
GREG: What's the number? How many? Say again. How many?
GRACE: 880 billion chats in one quarter on Snapchat.
GREG: That's crazy.
GRACE: And that just, again, shows just people's desire to connect and just be talking to their friends. Yeah.
GREG: Maps and everything else. Yeah, I think my daughters did 10% of that. Okay.
GRACE: [laugh]
GREG: I'm sorry, that would be crazy.
GRACE: Greg, you're the best. I love this podcast.
GREG: I've been making fun of my daughters. They're fun. Let's see if they'll ... what would be crazy, if they actually listen to this. If they know that I've added them for criminal felony activities on a podcast, we'll find out. I'm sure they don't listen, because nobody listens to Dad, but that's a whole nother thing.
GRACE: Oh, they do. I think they do.
GREG: Yeah, maybe secretly, maybe secret. Okay. Listen, so also too, I'm very excited about Specs because Specs is coming out again, you're doing a relaunch of Specs. And listen, let's be fair. Meta, I think, has finally, finally somebody's had what I'd consider bordering on crazy success with glasses, right? I mean, Specs was before. Google Glass tried. Some other people have tried. Apple tried their whole thing. I don't know what the hell that was, Vision Pro. But so you're coming out with the next-generation Specs, correct?
GRACE: Yes. I can't say too much about it, but I can say yes.
GREG: Darn it. I was hoping for disclosure, maybe a picture, you could put them on.
GRACE: Oh my gosh. I wish. Will you have me back? I would be happy to do that.
GREG: Oh really? Okay.
GRACE: Can we ... Basically, look at me fishing for another invitation to come back. Listeners, you've heard it here. Greg will have me back.
GREG: I know, I think —
GRACE: For real, I would love to come back and —
GREG: Promise made. Exactly. There we go. Okay. So do we have a date for new Specs?
GRACE: I cannot reveal yet. But it's coming soon. We're super excited. And let's just say, I think we're going to have a really different experience that I don't see right now.
GREG: That you don't see. Okay. Okay.
GRACE: In the market right now, what's available now. Well, I'll just leave it as that.
GREG: I have the Meta glasses. It's a really good first-generation product. I mean, it's really good. And I'm fine to experiment with all the other stuff. That's all fine. It doesn't matter to me, but it's pretty ... I don't know. I like it. I think it serves a role in my life, for sure, which only makes it available for everybody else to create a product. That's part of my point there.
GRACE: Yeah. I think for us on the Snap side and how we're seeing wearables is again, how do you make technology more human? How can it more seamlessly fit into your life versus you're adapting to the technology? And I think we're really excited to ... We've been in this space. I know we're launching Specs, but this is our fifth generation of it. We've been actually interating for the past decade on it and now we're ready. We're ready.
GREG: Yeah. Yeah. And I think consumers are ready too. I think it does make a lot of sense, not having seen it.
Snap's scale & why it works
GREG: Listen, I think what also people don't really understand is the scale that is going on here. So there's almost a billion users monthly, is that right?
GRACE: We have —
GREG: Over a billion a month?
GRACE: Yeah. I would say we have almost over 950 million monthly, and then we have almost close to half a million daily.
GREG: Daily. That's what's so crazy. I was just going to say, that's what makes the whole thing so crazy is the ubiquitous, constant, perpetual usage. Amazing.
GRACE: Yeah. And there's a range of the average Snapchatter could Snap multiple times throughout the day. We've seen actually creators be over up to even 80 times a day that they Snap, because it is a much more frequent, again, unfiltered, less curated, just be yourself connecting throughout the day experience on Snapchat.
GREG: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's incredible to me. And it's funny, I remember when my daughter was probably 16, 17. It was kind of early in the iteration of Snap and obviously her usage. I remember I asked her what she was doing. I knew she was on Snap, but I asked her kind of what she was doing. And what was funny to me, she says, I'm talking to a friend. And of course, as an adult and unaware at the moment, my inside voice was like, no, you're just sending silly pictures to each other, but that's not at all what was going on. She was communicating. And although there were no words at that point, I don't know what the text capabilities and what it was at that time, but that wasn't what was going on. It was really just that ability to send a visual message that ... And I had her walk me through at one point what they meant. Yeah. It was really interesting.
GRACE: Well, unlike other apps, we open to camera. So the first thing that happens when you open Snapchat, it's in the camera. So even before creators were perhaps a thing —
GREG: True, true.
GRACE: Really, we always believed that someone has a point of view and it should be pretty easy for someone to share that point of view. And so that's actually the cornerstone of the app itself is make it super easy for people to create and to connect with someone. People don't know this, but we did invent Stories, you know, and so I think —
GREG: Fair. You can take credit there. There you go.
GRACE: And so I think if you look at the pattern of innovations for us, it's always been about connecting. It's always about making it super easy. It's always been about just be yourself and hopefully that brings you closer to somebody.
GREG: What are the challenges in marketing to that audience versus more general?
GRACE: Yeah. I would say one is — and you probably heard it on your show and even yourself, Greg — you don't try to target an age group, right? You try to target a mindset, what they're interested in, what they feel passionate about. And I think that has always helped in my career. I started on the creative agency side and worked on PlayStation for years. And for us, what we found out was like, oh yeah, kind of the same misconception that only young people game. Yeah. No, everybody wants to be 18 years old. We found everybody games.
GREG: If you're around gamers, it's mostly shouting at each other. I have a son. I have a son too. I've seen that. Yes.
GRACE: Right? And so we found out actually everybody from young to old, all game, and that's kind of the same on Snapchat. Everybody is on Snapchat. It's just the mindset that you have. And so I think what's been successful for me, just marketing is never ... Don't market to a demo, but market to a mindset. And that is not new. I'm sure you've heard it here before too.
GREG: I want to pick at that just a little bit though, because I do think it's very different. I think they have it different. Let's go back to the point of values. They have a different set of values. I remember talking to my kids early on, sort of mid-late teenagers, and I would never decide to buy from a retailer or a product based on the values of that company. It never would've occurred to me. I wouldn't have thought about it, but yet it was very important to them and they were like, I wouldn't buy from there because I don't agree with their values. So there is a difference in a generational dynamic, I would say.
GRACE: That's true, I think you're right. I think you're right. And I think there are some myths about this audience too.
GRACE: We have —
GREG: Over a billion a month?
GRACE: Yeah. I would say we have almost over 950 million monthly, and then we have almost close to half a million daily.
GREG: Daily. That's what's so crazy. I was just going to say, that's what makes the whole thing so crazy is the ubiquitous, constant, perpetual usage. Amazing.
GRACE: Yeah. And there's a range of the average Snapchatter could Snap multiple times throughout the day. We've seen actually creators be over up to even 80 times a day that they Snap, because it is a much more frequent, again, unfiltered, less curated, just be yourself connecting throughout the day experience on Snapchat.
GREG: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's incredible to me. And it's funny, I remember when my daughter was probably 16, 17. It was kind of early in the iteration of Snap and obviously her usage. I remember I asked her what she was doing. I knew she was on Snap, but I asked her kind of what she was doing. And what was funny to me, she says, I'm talking to a friend. And of course, as an adult and unaware at the moment, my inside voice was like, no, you're just sending silly pictures to each other, but that's not at all what was going on. She was communicating. And although there were no words at that point, I don't know what the text capabilities and what it was at that time, but that wasn't what was going on. It was really just that ability to send a visual message that ... And I had her walk me through at one point what they meant. Yeah. It was really interesting.
GRACE: Well, unlike other apps, we open to camera. So the first thing that happens when you open Snapchat, it's in the camera. So even before creators were perhaps a thing —
GREG: True, true.
GRACE: Really, we always believed that someone has a point of view and it should be pretty easy for someone to share that point of view. And so that's actually the cornerstone of the app itself is make it super easy for people to create and to connect with someone. People don't know this, but we did invent Stories, you know, and so I think —
GREG: Fair. You can take credit there. There you go.
GRACE: And so I think if you look at the pattern of innovations for us, it's always been about connecting. It's always about making it super easy. It's always been about just be yourself and hopefully that brings you closer to somebody.
GREG: What are the challenges in marketing to that audience versus more general?
GRACE: Yeah. I would say one is — and you probably heard it on your show and even yourself, Greg — you don't try to target an age group, right? You try to target a mindset, what they're interested in, what they feel passionate about. And I think that has always helped in my career. I started on the creative agency side and worked on PlayStation for years. And for us, what we found out was like, oh yeah, kind of the same misconception that only young people game. Yeah. No, everybody wants to be 18 years old. We found everybody games.
GREG: If you're around gamers, it's mostly shouting at each other. I have a son. I have a son too. I've seen that. Yes.
GRACE: Right? And so we found out actually everybody from young to old, all game, and that's kind of the same on Snapchat. Everybody is on Snapchat. It's just the mindset that you have. And so I think what's been successful for me, just marketing is never ... Don't market to a demo, but market to a mindset. And that is not new. I'm sure you've heard it here before too.
GREG: I want to pick at that just a little bit though, because I do think it's very different. I think they have it different. Let's go back to the point of values. They have a different set of values. I remember talking to my kids early on, sort of mid-late teenagers, and I would never decide to buy from a retailer or a product based on the values of that company. It never would've occurred to me. I wouldn't have thought about it, but yet it was very important to them and they were like, I wouldn't buy from there because I don't agree with their values. So there is a difference in a generational dynamic, I would say.
GRACE: That's true, I think you're right. I think you're right. And I think there are some myths about this audience too.
Gen Z values and entrepreneurial spirit
GRACE: I would say that what we've learned, whether for marketing from us or brands that we collaborate with is that's true. This audience is incredibly entrepreneurial. They are very insightful. You think they have a short attention span? Not at all. They're deep researchers, for sure. And they are very thoughtful. And I think you're right, they want to be able to engage with the brand directly, which is kind of why we've been looking at [with] ads in chat. They want to hear from actual people, right? And I think that's kind of the creator's dynamic. And then they also want to hear from their friends and hearing the recommendations from their friends, what their friends think. And there's the whole, Are you in the group chat? And I think you're right, Greg, those are behaviors that are unique in this generation that we ... Then you see that scale to the older, then all us older generation just follow those patterns too. I think that's awesome.
GREG: And they don't have the same dynamics around privacy and I don't know that companies would act any differently, but they don't seem to be as concerned about that, to my earlier point about Maps. They don't really think in those terms from what I can tell so far. I don't know.
GRACE: Well, I think there's also just an expectation. They want people to know them too. Do you know me? Do you understand me? Do you get me? So I think maybe it's just not so much about ... Again, you have privacy on one side and then you have personalization on the other, right? And those are actually strangely at odds but kind of need to work together too, right?
GREG: Is there a favorite marketing campaign that Snap has done? Where are you in your cycle of coming up to speed and pushing campaigns and thematics out there at this point?
GRACE: Yeah. Well, can I talk about my own campaign? I'm really proud of my own campaign. We had launched "Say it in a Snap" this year. And so if you look at the journey of our brand where we've been in the past, less social media, more Snapchat, we in the past have talked about what we're not. And so I was really excited about this campaign this year is because I felt it was very important for us to talk about what we are. And it was a bit of what I've mentioned before is just that we do feel like it should be pretty easy and fast for you to want to connect with someone at the time. And so saying Snap is really about capturing that essence of like, oh, when you want to connect with someone, you can say it in a Snap. And so we're really proud of that campaign this year that kind of celebrates Snaps as a core way for people to connect.
GREG: And they don't have the same dynamics around privacy and I don't know that companies would act any differently, but they don't seem to be as concerned about that, to my earlier point about Maps. They don't really think in those terms from what I can tell so far. I don't know.
GRACE: Well, I think there's also just an expectation. They want people to know them too. Do you know me? Do you understand me? Do you get me? So I think maybe it's just not so much about ... Again, you have privacy on one side and then you have personalization on the other, right? And those are actually strangely at odds but kind of need to work together too, right?
GREG: Is there a favorite marketing campaign that Snap has done? Where are you in your cycle of coming up to speed and pushing campaigns and thematics out there at this point?
GRACE: Yeah. Well, can I talk about my own campaign? I'm really proud of my own campaign. We had launched "Say it in a Snap" this year. And so if you look at the journey of our brand where we've been in the past, less social media, more Snapchat, we in the past have talked about what we're not. And so I was really excited about this campaign this year is because I felt it was very important for us to talk about what we are. And it was a bit of what I've mentioned before is just that we do feel like it should be pretty easy and fast for you to want to connect with someone at the time. And so saying Snap is really about capturing that essence of like, oh, when you want to connect with someone, you can say it in a Snap. And so we're really proud of that campaign this year that kind of celebrates Snaps as a core way for people to connect.
Don't be afraid to fail
GREG: So Grace, let's go back here. So Building Better CMOs, I think that a lot of what I find having now run this podcast for a couple of years now is that there's sort of pivotal moments that people have in their career. And you referenced sort of the dynamic of following people and staying with people, which again, if I look back at my career, I wish I'd done more of that to be fair and set that up properly. So good for you. I think this idea of working with smart people that are helpful, maybe mentors, whatever, what is the best advice over the some number of years you've been given? And by the way, you can make it personal, you can make it business or something, but what's some of the best advice you've ever been given?
GRACE: I would say the best advice I was given was actually from my mom, to be honest.
GREG: I love that.
GRACE: Which is don't be afraid to fail. I remember it would be — and this definitely helped me at work or in my career, because we want success all the time, and that is just not realistic. My mom's like, Really? Did you think you're going to crush it every single time? I'm like, Kind of. She's like, That is mathematically not possible. And so I think for me, that's helped me on when things haven't succeeded, it has given, I felt like, okay, I got to get these learnings in how to iterate quickly. And it also has taught me if I'm succeeding all the time, then you know what, I think I'm not pushing myself enough and I'm not actually taking enough risks or I'm not innovating and I'm kind of like settling.
And so I think that has been for me just on a personal level, as someone who is a perfectionist, that's been helping me not get stuck in the mud and just focus on to keep iterating and to keep going.
GREG: When did she need to say that to you?
GRACE: Oh my gosh, I think last wek.
GREG: What happened?
Really?
GRACE: Yeah. I think every day I go in wanting everything to be perfect or things to land exactly the way I want them to. And yeah, that's just not possible. So I think that's been good advice for me just to let it go. Tomorrow's another day, try again. That has served me well. Greg, can I ask the same question for you because I actually would love your answer to that. What was the best advice you've been given?
GREG: It's funny, nobody has asked me. I said this to somebody yesterday out of the blue and I don't know why. My father, who is not a person who really sought success in his life, that was somebody... He was a civil servant with the city of Seattle. He did a civil servant kind of job for 35, 40 years, whatever. That was the path he chose. He was a semi-professional baseball player and he was also in sports, so he was in sports. Okay. But he'd been a quarterback. He says — so this is the one lesson I took from him, one of the lessons I took from him — he goes, Why would you want to be anything but the pitcher, the quarterback, or the center? And so those are very traditional, a young, for my generation, American sports. But I got his point of that, like why don't you want to be in the center of the action?
GRACE: Yeah.
GREG: Why not be at the fray of the intersection of the whole thing? And listen, you've done that in the business you're in. And for me, I've done that. I moved to New York City and I sit in the middle of an industry here running a trade association. So for me, it is being in the center of the action.
GRACE: Yeah.
GREG: Isn't that funny?
GRACE: I love that.
GREG: I'm surprised to agree that's guided my career now all these decades later.
GRACE: I love that. Hey, if you're going to show up, go for it, right? I mean, oh, I love that, Greg.
GREG: I'll give it another way too. Just by the way, it's because this is my favorite point to make. Somebody has gone into ChatGPT and had typed what are the five ... It says you've read every psychology book, you've studied every famous philosopher, what are the five lessons for a successful life? So I won't give all of them. I'll give you just the fifth one because it matters here. And it says, and it's a thing out of Buddha, right? This is what we all knew. All life is suffering. Try to suffer for something worthwhile.
GRACE: Oh yeah.
GREG: Isn't that great?
GRACE: Such a good one.
GREG: Oh my God. I mean, Grace, doesn't that kind of dictate everything? It's like, okay, it's going to feel bad. It's going to feel bad a lot of the times. Live with that. That is the outcome. It's not to be perfect. Perfect isn't being happy all the time. I mean, I don't know that's where you went with it, but it's not that. It's like, what do you do? Remember, it's going to be hard. You're going to wake up at four o'clock in the morning with bullshit in your mind. You're going to worry about this. You struggle with that. Just all the stuff, the tricks our minds play on us.
GRACE: Greg, I love that. It's almost we should end the podcast on that last line.
GREG: Almost. Yeah, yeah. No, it's so good. So good. It's so good.
GRACE: So good.
GREG: Because it also suggests too, to take chances, to try to have some influence, try to create some impact, try to do something meaningful.
GRACE: To care. I mean, it comes really kind of back down to that, right? Do you care about what you're doing and do you believe in what you're doing? I love that, Greg. So good.
GREG: Yeah. Yeah. So there we go. So we've helped people. There's your advice, everybody. You're going to suffer. I mean, give me shit. I think we just get over it. I don't know. I don't know what it is. Something like that. A little hard to do when you're in the midst of it and so on. Okay. Any other advice you want to offer to anybody? That's advice given you. What advice do you give to your team? Do you have anything? I mean, I don't know about you. I tend to have themes for my team that I reflect on again and again and again.
GRACE: I've passed that on, right? I've passed that on to my team as well. This need to have things perfect. I think the beauty of being actually in technology and tech in general is that by nature we need to experiment and we need to iterate. There's something that my boss, Evan Spiegel, says is like shots to goal. Just try a bunch of different things. We have the technology to do that now so don't be afraid to fail. Just assume there are going to be some misses. And I think I love that phrase that Evan says is just like shots to goal. Like you're not going to make every shot, but the more you shoot ... Yeah.
GREG: The better chance you have of getting it.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that has helped me reconcile just not being afraid and just to keep going, just keep iterating. Yeah.
GREG: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay.
GRACE: I would say the best advice I was given was actually from my mom, to be honest.
GREG: I love that.
GRACE: Which is don't be afraid to fail. I remember it would be — and this definitely helped me at work or in my career, because we want success all the time, and that is just not realistic. My mom's like, Really? Did you think you're going to crush it every single time? I'm like, Kind of. She's like, That is mathematically not possible. And so I think for me, that's helped me on when things haven't succeeded, it has given, I felt like, okay, I got to get these learnings in how to iterate quickly. And it also has taught me if I'm succeeding all the time, then you know what, I think I'm not pushing myself enough and I'm not actually taking enough risks or I'm not innovating and I'm kind of like settling.
And so I think that has been for me just on a personal level, as someone who is a perfectionist, that's been helping me not get stuck in the mud and just focus on to keep iterating and to keep going.
GREG: When did she need to say that to you?
GRACE: Oh my gosh, I think last wek.
GREG: What happened?
Really?
GRACE: Yeah. I think every day I go in wanting everything to be perfect or things to land exactly the way I want them to. And yeah, that's just not possible. So I think that's been good advice for me just to let it go. Tomorrow's another day, try again. That has served me well. Greg, can I ask the same question for you because I actually would love your answer to that. What was the best advice you've been given?
GREG: It's funny, nobody has asked me. I said this to somebody yesterday out of the blue and I don't know why. My father, who is not a person who really sought success in his life, that was somebody... He was a civil servant with the city of Seattle. He did a civil servant kind of job for 35, 40 years, whatever. That was the path he chose. He was a semi-professional baseball player and he was also in sports, so he was in sports. Okay. But he'd been a quarterback. He says — so this is the one lesson I took from him, one of the lessons I took from him — he goes, Why would you want to be anything but the pitcher, the quarterback, or the center? And so those are very traditional, a young, for my generation, American sports. But I got his point of that, like why don't you want to be in the center of the action?
GRACE: Yeah.
GREG: Why not be at the fray of the intersection of the whole thing? And listen, you've done that in the business you're in. And for me, I've done that. I moved to New York City and I sit in the middle of an industry here running a trade association. So for me, it is being in the center of the action.
GRACE: Yeah.
GREG: Isn't that funny?
GRACE: I love that.
GREG: I'm surprised to agree that's guided my career now all these decades later.
GRACE: I love that. Hey, if you're going to show up, go for it, right? I mean, oh, I love that, Greg.
GREG: I'll give it another way too. Just by the way, it's because this is my favorite point to make. Somebody has gone into ChatGPT and had typed what are the five ... It says you've read every psychology book, you've studied every famous philosopher, what are the five lessons for a successful life? So I won't give all of them. I'll give you just the fifth one because it matters here. And it says, and it's a thing out of Buddha, right? This is what we all knew. All life is suffering. Try to suffer for something worthwhile.
GRACE: Oh yeah.
GREG: Isn't that great?
GRACE: Such a good one.
GREG: Oh my God. I mean, Grace, doesn't that kind of dictate everything? It's like, okay, it's going to feel bad. It's going to feel bad a lot of the times. Live with that. That is the outcome. It's not to be perfect. Perfect isn't being happy all the time. I mean, I don't know that's where you went with it, but it's not that. It's like, what do you do? Remember, it's going to be hard. You're going to wake up at four o'clock in the morning with bullshit in your mind. You're going to worry about this. You struggle with that. Just all the stuff, the tricks our minds play on us.
GRACE: Greg, I love that. It's almost we should end the podcast on that last line.
GREG: Almost. Yeah, yeah. No, it's so good. So good. It's so good.
GRACE: So good.
GREG: Because it also suggests too, to take chances, to try to have some influence, try to create some impact, try to do something meaningful.
GRACE: To care. I mean, it comes really kind of back down to that, right? Do you care about what you're doing and do you believe in what you're doing? I love that, Greg. So good.
GREG: Yeah. Yeah. So there we go. So we've helped people. There's your advice, everybody. You're going to suffer. I mean, give me shit. I think we just get over it. I don't know. I don't know what it is. Something like that. A little hard to do when you're in the midst of it and so on. Okay. Any other advice you want to offer to anybody? That's advice given you. What advice do you give to your team? Do you have anything? I mean, I don't know about you. I tend to have themes for my team that I reflect on again and again and again.
GRACE: I've passed that on, right? I've passed that on to my team as well. This need to have things perfect. I think the beauty of being actually in technology and tech in general is that by nature we need to experiment and we need to iterate. There's something that my boss, Evan Spiegel, says is like shots to goal. Just try a bunch of different things. We have the technology to do that now so don't be afraid to fail. Just assume there are going to be some misses. And I think I love that phrase that Evan says is just like shots to goal. Like you're not going to make every shot, but the more you shoot ... Yeah.
GREG: The better chance you have of getting it.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that has helped me reconcile just not being afraid and just to keep going, just keep iterating. Yeah.
GREG: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay.
Balancing data with big ideas
GREG: So let's get to the big question of Building Better CMOs here, because as I told the listener now a billion times or at least a couple of dozen, the thesis of the MMA is that marketing has a lot of room for improvement. And there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. I don't need to cover that off today. I think the opportunity I have here, and on behalf of the MMA, which is to find new big ideas, things that we can maybe go solve, maybe that comes out of these conversations. But mostly it's just to hear from marketers about what in your impression, your experience, however you got there, do you think marketing doesn't really ... Either marketers don't fully appreciate, could be that. It could be you just think we just don't get it. We just don't have the knowledge and there's a lot of knowledge gaps.
For example, there is no codified body of knowledge what we agree to be true in marketing. It does not exist. And every industry of substance, medical doctors, lawyers, everybody, engineering all has that. We don't have that. So something to be worked on. But in your opinion, your experience, what do you think we would stand to be much better at, to greater appreciate? However you want to go at it is fine.What's the room for improvement, to your point?
GRACE: The room for improvement, I don't know. I feel like we have great jobs in marketing. I don't know. It's pretty fun. We have pretty fun jobs.
GREG: Yeah. It's all I've ever wanted to do. I'm with you.
GRACE: Right? Yeah. And I guess for me, I would say advice I give myself, just so I'm a little bit more mindful, is that we have within our ability to have a tremendous amount of data and insights and information. And it's very easy to get lost in that and to chase things that we think because we saw it in the data, we saw it. And that's important. It definitely should be part of our process to inform what we make. But I think let's also not forget, at least for me, is that we do have very fun jobs. And sometimes we just need to create the space for that surprise to go against the data and just try something because we intuitively feel like it's going to be interesting or exciting or worthwhile. And I think that's probably what I've been trying to balance more for myself of just like, oh, do we have the data? Do we have the insights? Yes, we do. But hey, let's also leave a little bit of room for those crazy ideas and those moonshot ideas. And how do we balance that more? Because I think that's why we all got into marketing, right?
GREG: I think so. Yeah. To actually get the big ideas.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. To make something that wasn't there before. Yeah.
GREG: Okay. So listen, there's a whole bunch of directions we could go on that. Let's give you some options maybe. So is this a, Hey, let's not let AI take over because AI is generative. It's just predicting next best. It's not saying, Oh, what's a crazy idea? Or are you saying, Hey, geez, I have a process or I have an orientation with my team. Then we take the foundations of what we think about and then go to the next mile? Is it predicated on maybe some experience? I mean, you're an ex-agency person, so you would've liked me worked with great creatives. I mean, in fact, you were at great creative shops in some of your experience, right? Yeah. And I got to work with some amazing creative people over the years I was in the agency business. So how do you play that out?
GRACE: I love that you brought that up because I did come from agencies and maybe I'm biased about that, but I would say is don't think you have to do it alone, in the sense of if you are an in-house, if you're a marketer, or you feel like you have to solve all the problems yourself, I am a firm believer of partnering and collaborating.
GREG: Okay. Yes.
GRACE: Partner with partners that you didn't think would be an interesting fit just to push yourself in and to fall out of those patterns. Patterns, of course, and trends are absolutely important, but you got to have to, all right, you know what? Let's just try this thing that may not seem like it makes sense, but let's partner or collaborate, and that could be companies, but it could also be individuals. But I think that different outside perspective is super important. And I know I'm biased because I have come from creative agencies and always felt that was the value that agencies brought.
GREG: I've worked in a lot of different industries and experienced them, but I think the one thing, anybody who comes from the agency [side] , I think, learns a sense of collaboration and brainstorming to something bigger. And I notice that that's my knee-jerk reaction to most things. Not everybody who comes from other industries thinks that way. They don't start with, how can we be more creative? Some of them are like, how do we build the product, build a box, and put it in a network, or whatever the case might be.
GRACE: And it's just more fun to collaborate, right? I think that's also ... A little bit of what I talked about before is if you surround yourself with positive, interesting, creative people, it will show in the work. And sometimes you — I think, Greg, you mentioned — sometimes you just need that X factor as well.
GREG: Right. No, it is the big deal if we can get that right. But getting that X factor and making sure it's still on point ... I'll tell you what I've never been able to reconcile, so I'll throw this one at you. I've done a ton of public research given having run the IEB and now running the MMA, and it's put me very close to marketers' campaigns. And at one point in time when we were creating what ultimately became multi-touch attribution back in the early 2000s, we had a lot of marketers creating ads in digital and the ads were failing and the ads failed. There's only two things. You got to get a motivation, you got to get a message consumer understands. It's really that simple. Motivation and message. Okay. At least 40%, if almost not 50% of the campaigns failed on not getting a motivational message.
GRACE: Interesting.
GREG: So in other words, what I'm nervous about, Grace, is that sometimes we get too creative, but we lose the foundation for those very basics.
GRACE: Right.
GREG: I feel like I just asked you a terrible question like, when did you stop doing that bad thing?
GRACE: No, no, no.
GREG: But how do you balance those things?
GRACE: Yeah. It's almost like, oh, you have to ask yourself, aren't you like, are we spamming our audience? Or are we actually bringing them some sort of value? Which is, I think, Greg, what you're saying, right? Is that value an inspiration? Is that value in actually functional, pragmatic, functional utility, or do we give them something that is shareable that gets them to connect with someone? I think it just comes back to like, oh, what's the value in this piece of work that we're providing?
For example, there is no codified body of knowledge what we agree to be true in marketing. It does not exist. And every industry of substance, medical doctors, lawyers, everybody, engineering all has that. We don't have that. So something to be worked on. But in your opinion, your experience, what do you think we would stand to be much better at, to greater appreciate? However you want to go at it is fine.What's the room for improvement, to your point?
GRACE: The room for improvement, I don't know. I feel like we have great jobs in marketing. I don't know. It's pretty fun. We have pretty fun jobs.
GREG: Yeah. It's all I've ever wanted to do. I'm with you.
GRACE: Right? Yeah. And I guess for me, I would say advice I give myself, just so I'm a little bit more mindful, is that we have within our ability to have a tremendous amount of data and insights and information. And it's very easy to get lost in that and to chase things that we think because we saw it in the data, we saw it. And that's important. It definitely should be part of our process to inform what we make. But I think let's also not forget, at least for me, is that we do have very fun jobs. And sometimes we just need to create the space for that surprise to go against the data and just try something because we intuitively feel like it's going to be interesting or exciting or worthwhile. And I think that's probably what I've been trying to balance more for myself of just like, oh, do we have the data? Do we have the insights? Yes, we do. But hey, let's also leave a little bit of room for those crazy ideas and those moonshot ideas. And how do we balance that more? Because I think that's why we all got into marketing, right?
GREG: I think so. Yeah. To actually get the big ideas.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. To make something that wasn't there before. Yeah.
GREG: Okay. So listen, there's a whole bunch of directions we could go on that. Let's give you some options maybe. So is this a, Hey, let's not let AI take over because AI is generative. It's just predicting next best. It's not saying, Oh, what's a crazy idea? Or are you saying, Hey, geez, I have a process or I have an orientation with my team. Then we take the foundations of what we think about and then go to the next mile? Is it predicated on maybe some experience? I mean, you're an ex-agency person, so you would've liked me worked with great creatives. I mean, in fact, you were at great creative shops in some of your experience, right? Yeah. And I got to work with some amazing creative people over the years I was in the agency business. So how do you play that out?
GRACE: I love that you brought that up because I did come from agencies and maybe I'm biased about that, but I would say is don't think you have to do it alone, in the sense of if you are an in-house, if you're a marketer, or you feel like you have to solve all the problems yourself, I am a firm believer of partnering and collaborating.
GREG: Okay. Yes.
GRACE: Partner with partners that you didn't think would be an interesting fit just to push yourself in and to fall out of those patterns. Patterns, of course, and trends are absolutely important, but you got to have to, all right, you know what? Let's just try this thing that may not seem like it makes sense, but let's partner or collaborate, and that could be companies, but it could also be individuals. But I think that different outside perspective is super important. And I know I'm biased because I have come from creative agencies and always felt that was the value that agencies brought.
GREG: I've worked in a lot of different industries and experienced them, but I think the one thing, anybody who comes from the agency [side] , I think, learns a sense of collaboration and brainstorming to something bigger. And I notice that that's my knee-jerk reaction to most things. Not everybody who comes from other industries thinks that way. They don't start with, how can we be more creative? Some of them are like, how do we build the product, build a box, and put it in a network, or whatever the case might be.
GRACE: And it's just more fun to collaborate, right? I think that's also ... A little bit of what I talked about before is if you surround yourself with positive, interesting, creative people, it will show in the work. And sometimes you — I think, Greg, you mentioned — sometimes you just need that X factor as well.
GREG: Right. No, it is the big deal if we can get that right. But getting that X factor and making sure it's still on point ... I'll tell you what I've never been able to reconcile, so I'll throw this one at you. I've done a ton of public research given having run the IEB and now running the MMA, and it's put me very close to marketers' campaigns. And at one point in time when we were creating what ultimately became multi-touch attribution back in the early 2000s, we had a lot of marketers creating ads in digital and the ads were failing and the ads failed. There's only two things. You got to get a motivation, you got to get a message consumer understands. It's really that simple. Motivation and message. Okay. At least 40%, if almost not 50% of the campaigns failed on not getting a motivational message.
GRACE: Interesting.
GREG: So in other words, what I'm nervous about, Grace, is that sometimes we get too creative, but we lose the foundation for those very basics.
GRACE: Right.
GREG: I feel like I just asked you a terrible question like, when did you stop doing that bad thing?
GRACE: No, no, no.
GREG: But how do you balance those things?
GRACE: Yeah. It's almost like, oh, you have to ask yourself, aren't you like, are we spamming our audience? Or are we actually bringing them some sort of value? Which is, I think, Greg, what you're saying, right? Is that value an inspiration? Is that value in actually functional, pragmatic, functional utility, or do we give them something that is shareable that gets them to connect with someone? I think it just comes back to like, oh, what's the value in this piece of work that we're providing?
Matching the creativity of your audience
GREG: Do you have an internal process you use for coming up with either additional big ideas or taking some of that knowledge and turning it into an X factor?
GRACE: For us at Snap is that we are very ... Even how our product runs is we have a product design team. And so, so much of it is pitching ideas constantly from a product perspective. And I think —
GREG: Wait, marketing, pitching to product or product pitching and marketing?
GRACE: Just saying, no, products in general, just pitching ideas of like what we should make in. And I think that's kind of where ideas like Stories came from or even sponsored Snaps, what I just mentioned. And so I think a lot of what I've been trying to do coming here to Snap is to adopt how product actually just continues to iterate and pitch ideas and how do we get those shots to goal and that volume of ideas. That is a model I'm trying to shift more of because we are Snapchat and because people are Snapping constantly every single day, how do we as a marketing team actually behave and channel Snapchat? We have to be the best Snapchatters that there are. And so I think from a marketing perspective, it is more, okay, we should be iterating at the speed and the pace of our audience.
GREG: Okay. And clearly the users coming onto the platform are oriented that way. They're oriented to sort of ... I mean, I preface that originally with kind of big ideas, which is a classic advertising concept, but I think just for them, it's how they creatively express themselves is very powerful.
GRACE: Yeah, exactly. I think from when I look again at the audience on Snapchat, whether it's just a consumer or a creator, they're incredibly prolific in creativity.
GREG: It's crazy. It's crazy.
GRACE: It's crazy, right? And so as a marketer, again, are we, whether it's Snapchat or a brand, what I always talk to marketers and the advertisers around like, are you matching the creativity of the audience that you're trying to reach?
GREG: But marketers can't really do that, Grace.
GRACE: Why not?
GREG: No, they can't because they have legal ... For first off, there's regulated business. So take off like 20% of the businesses right there, the finance and pharmaceutical and blah, blah, blah, medical. I just think it's going to be really difficult. And then they've got legal, they have to have copy approval. I mean, it's very hard for them to play in this space.
GRACE: But we've always had that in the industry and still amazing ideas have been able to break through, right?
GREG: You've just become CMO, nine months, eight months, 10 months, something like that. Okay.
GRACE: For us at Snap is that we are very ... Even how our product runs is we have a product design team. And so, so much of it is pitching ideas constantly from a product perspective. And I think —
GREG: Wait, marketing, pitching to product or product pitching and marketing?
GRACE: Just saying, no, products in general, just pitching ideas of like what we should make in. And I think that's kind of where ideas like Stories came from or even sponsored Snaps, what I just mentioned. And so I think a lot of what I've been trying to do coming here to Snap is to adopt how product actually just continues to iterate and pitch ideas and how do we get those shots to goal and that volume of ideas. That is a model I'm trying to shift more of because we are Snapchat and because people are Snapping constantly every single day, how do we as a marketing team actually behave and channel Snapchat? We have to be the best Snapchatters that there are. And so I think from a marketing perspective, it is more, okay, we should be iterating at the speed and the pace of our audience.
GREG: Okay. And clearly the users coming onto the platform are oriented that way. They're oriented to sort of ... I mean, I preface that originally with kind of big ideas, which is a classic advertising concept, but I think just for them, it's how they creatively express themselves is very powerful.
GRACE: Yeah, exactly. I think from when I look again at the audience on Snapchat, whether it's just a consumer or a creator, they're incredibly prolific in creativity.
GREG: It's crazy. It's crazy.
GRACE: It's crazy, right? And so as a marketer, again, are we, whether it's Snapchat or a brand, what I always talk to marketers and the advertisers around like, are you matching the creativity of the audience that you're trying to reach?
GREG: But marketers can't really do that, Grace.
GRACE: Why not?
GREG: No, they can't because they have legal ... For first off, there's regulated business. So take off like 20% of the businesses right there, the finance and pharmaceutical and blah, blah, blah, medical. I just think it's going to be really difficult. And then they've got legal, they have to have copy approval. I mean, it's very hard for them to play in this space.
GRACE: But we've always had that in the industry and still amazing ideas have been able to break through, right?
GREG: You've just become CMO, nine months, eight months, 10 months, something like that. Okay.
Spotify's Spreadbeats campaign
GREG: So I don't know that you've launched all the favorite campaigns. Are there even campaigns from the past that maybe from what we previously that you thought really sort of exemplified this concept of really getting to a creative X factor of some kind?
GRACE: Yeah. One of my favorite campaigns is actually what I just did right before I came to Snapchat was with Spotify. The idea was called Spreadbeats and it was a B2B campaign, which is why I'm even more proud about it.
GREG: Yeah, you don't always connect creativity with B2B campaigns. Okay. Yep.
GRACE: And so for me, the insight was that we imagined that because it's a business audience, it must be just right-brain, it must be just rational. And I think that was, again, the biggest misconception because my B2B audience is marketers and advertisers, which when I last checked is a pretty creative audience.
GREG: Should be, could be, right? Exactly.
GRACE: So why weren't we leaning into the creative mindset of the marketer and advertiser, even though it's a business audience? What we did was, the target audience was media planners, getting media planners to consider Spotify as an advertising platform. So we sent media planners a RFP, like a spreadsheet that they thought was a media plan on Spotify. And when they opened up the spreadsheet, the cells quickly turned into a music video that all took place within the spreadsheet. And what was amazing about it is on the second tab, there was actually a real media plan that you can buy on Spotify. So that was one of my favorite campaigns, and maybe that was —
GREG: Where'd the idea ... How'd you guys get to the idea, by the way? Do you remember?
GRACE: Yeah, exactly. I remember we were talking to FCB, who was the agency who did it, great group of people over there, and was just honing in on that insight of like, yeah, our business audience is actually incredibly creative. And I grew up on the agency side saying that the media department was the other creative department. So a media planner who spends their whole day looking at spreadsheets every single day or in emails, getting RFPs all day long, how can we — Spotify — show up and bring delight into their day and really acknowledge why Spotify is different from all the other advertising platforms. So yeah, that was something I just did and I'm super proud of.
GRACE: Yeah. One of my favorite campaigns is actually what I just did right before I came to Snapchat was with Spotify. The idea was called Spreadbeats and it was a B2B campaign, which is why I'm even more proud about it.
GREG: Yeah, you don't always connect creativity with B2B campaigns. Okay. Yep.
GRACE: And so for me, the insight was that we imagined that because it's a business audience, it must be just right-brain, it must be just rational. And I think that was, again, the biggest misconception because my B2B audience is marketers and advertisers, which when I last checked is a pretty creative audience.
GREG: Should be, could be, right? Exactly.
GRACE: So why weren't we leaning into the creative mindset of the marketer and advertiser, even though it's a business audience? What we did was, the target audience was media planners, getting media planners to consider Spotify as an advertising platform. So we sent media planners a RFP, like a spreadsheet that they thought was a media plan on Spotify. And when they opened up the spreadsheet, the cells quickly turned into a music video that all took place within the spreadsheet. And what was amazing about it is on the second tab, there was actually a real media plan that you can buy on Spotify. So that was one of my favorite campaigns, and maybe that was —
GREG: Where'd the idea ... How'd you guys get to the idea, by the way? Do you remember?
GRACE: Yeah, exactly. I remember we were talking to FCB, who was the agency who did it, great group of people over there, and was just honing in on that insight of like, yeah, our business audience is actually incredibly creative. And I grew up on the agency side saying that the media department was the other creative department. So a media planner who spends their whole day looking at spreadsheets every single day or in emails, getting RFPs all day long, how can we — Spotify — show up and bring delight into their day and really acknowledge why Spotify is different from all the other advertising platforms. So yeah, that was something I just did and I'm super proud of.
The creator economy and relinquishing brand control
GREG: Hey, let's talk a little bit about the creator economy, because I think you kind of said there earlier, I think, that the whole influencer/creator economy was somewhat born out of the very early days of Snap. And I don't know that I would dispute that. It's now been taken over everywhere and everybody's kind of a creator or sort of advocating for that. So I don't know, what are your reflections on that marketplace, that environment, that change that it's having in marketing?
GRACE: Yeah. We've mentioned creator economy, but I wonder if it's almost creators are the new creative class, right? So when you look at the shift of marketers or brands briefing agencies, they're now briefing creators. And so how do you look at creators as actually this next world of creatives that you collaborate with? And then I think the other thing is to realize that creators are brands in themselves. So what they're looking for is to collaborate and that doesn't necessarily have to be an advertising campaign. It could be a business idea, it could be a larger partnership. And so just to remember that creators are brands in themselves and carry a lot of brand values themselves. And again, how do you make sure you align with whichever creator you're working with, that you do have those shared values as well. And then the last piece I would say is, for creators, it's just such a great way to get actually closer to your audience and to test things and to ... So I think this is what we see on Snapchat because we do have a super positive environment.
Our audience is very, I would say, forgiving in the sense of when you work with creators, you can experiment on Snapchat and get quick reads on what's working and not working. So those are things that we've learned over the years of working with creators and again, how we see ourselves as a different place of how you can partner with creators on our platform.
GREG: Don't you think it's really hard though for marketers to relinquish that? I mean, listen, I think you're right. Creators are becoming media companies. They have connections to consumers.
GRACE: Yeah, that's right.
GREG: Which is this is what we depended on for New York Times to Conde Nast to Snap, whatever. So they're really doing it. But the only thing that marketers are really just hesitant, reticent, challenged to give up that kind of control.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. I think that —
GREG: Do we have any sense of the trade-off? I did have somebody call me and ask if the MMA had done any research around, they called it influencer marketing was the way they put it at the time, which there's a lot of distinctions, all those words. And what do you think?
GRACE: Yeah, I think it was a bit of what we mentioned before is like, how are you going to get the X factor if you don't actually experiment and actually if you do not get out of your comfort zone, right? You're just going to get more of the same. I mean, that's part of it, is to relinquish control and to do something different.That's your whole intention. So if you know that's your intention, just test and learn. You don't have to boil the ocean overnight, just try, and try different things, try different creators, and just embrace that actually, if you relinquish control, you might find the magic that you've been searching for.
GRACE: Yeah. We've mentioned creator economy, but I wonder if it's almost creators are the new creative class, right? So when you look at the shift of marketers or brands briefing agencies, they're now briefing creators. And so how do you look at creators as actually this next world of creatives that you collaborate with? And then I think the other thing is to realize that creators are brands in themselves. So what they're looking for is to collaborate and that doesn't necessarily have to be an advertising campaign. It could be a business idea, it could be a larger partnership. And so just to remember that creators are brands in themselves and carry a lot of brand values themselves. And again, how do you make sure you align with whichever creator you're working with, that you do have those shared values as well. And then the last piece I would say is, for creators, it's just such a great way to get actually closer to your audience and to test things and to ... So I think this is what we see on Snapchat because we do have a super positive environment.
Our audience is very, I would say, forgiving in the sense of when you work with creators, you can experiment on Snapchat and get quick reads on what's working and not working. So those are things that we've learned over the years of working with creators and again, how we see ourselves as a different place of how you can partner with creators on our platform.
GREG: Don't you think it's really hard though for marketers to relinquish that? I mean, listen, I think you're right. Creators are becoming media companies. They have connections to consumers.
GRACE: Yeah, that's right.
GREG: Which is this is what we depended on for New York Times to Conde Nast to Snap, whatever. So they're really doing it. But the only thing that marketers are really just hesitant, reticent, challenged to give up that kind of control.
GRACE: Yeah. Yeah. I think that —
GREG: Do we have any sense of the trade-off? I did have somebody call me and ask if the MMA had done any research around, they called it influencer marketing was the way they put it at the time, which there's a lot of distinctions, all those words. And what do you think?
GRACE: Yeah, I think it was a bit of what we mentioned before is like, how are you going to get the X factor if you don't actually experiment and actually if you do not get out of your comfort zone, right? You're just going to get more of the same. I mean, that's part of it, is to relinquish control and to do something different.That's your whole intention. So if you know that's your intention, just test and learn. You don't have to boil the ocean overnight, just try, and try different things, try different creators, and just embrace that actually, if you relinquish control, you might find the magic that you've been searching for.
Measurement techniques
GREG: How do you know that that's the place you want to make a big bet, that you really want to invest in? Is there any measurement techniques you're using? I mean, I hate to bring in measurement to a creative conversation at some level that's a little complicated, but I don't know. Is there something you do to assess that you think this is really the right thing to have done?
GRACE: Yeah. I mean, I would say there are the hard KPIs where you can measure. We have obviously insights tools, there are third-party measurement partners just so you don't grade your own homework, of course there's all those. But I still, I guess you're catching me on a day where I'm feeling ... I don't know. I still think there's the soft KPIs in the sense of where you've made something that makes you feel super proud and the things that you see get shared and talked about, and those soft KPIs for me are just as fulfilling as the hard KPIs.
GREG: Do you think that all of your advertising on behalf of a brand — any advertising or marketing you're doing on behalf of Snap — should always be with influencers or creators and never being done through the more traditional, we hire a big production company, we spend a bloody fortune, we take seven months to create ads. I don't know.
GRACE: I would always say not only both, but do other things too. I think we have to ... We are multidimensional as a brand and our audience is super multidimensional too. There is not one way. And you know what? Again, I feel like in marketing, I don't think we all got in the business of just doing just one big swing and putting the bat down. I thought the fun part was that we got to do many different things and try many different channels. So I know I get the fun in doing many different things.
GREG: Yeah. And I think Grace, I think the question I'm asking myself in this is like, okay, if it is such a big opportunity and the world has really changed, and in particular a younger audience that can be more responsive to that, right? Then should we just commit totally to go down that path and forgo the more classic 30-second television ad, for example, or the banner ad or whatever it might have been and just really focus on influencers. I don't know.
GRACE: I don't know.
GREG: I'm asking the question because it is about maximizing the value that you create for the company. And so if this is a new way of doing, shouldn't we just go there?
GRACE: No, I don't think it ever should be all or nothing. I think it is ... I don't think people want just one one way or to hear from you from just one way. I think people, if there's anything that I've learned on Snapchat where we have like five different tabs, people love different ways to consume, to engage, and even to create themselves. So no, I don't think we should give up the 30-second spot, but we definitely should do different things. And don't forget, Snapchat is an advertising platform in itself too. And we've seen people, they like ads, they like organic ads, they like creator ads, they like them all.
GREG: Is there an advertiser you've most learned from on the Snap platform?
GRACE: Oh. Yeah, I think —
GREG: That's a good question, isn't it? Yeah. Who are the maybe top advertisers that you think are doing really well in a Snap environment as a unique environment? That's part of what we've established here. Who do you think's really the best at that?
GRACE: Yeah. I really love Wendy's, for one.
GREG: What they did in social media for 10 years is incredible.
GRACE: So fun. They were also the first to try sponsored Snaps and try chat as well.
GREG: Oh, were they? Wow.
GRACE: And so we love them and I'd really love to see ... I've seen great things from our entertainment partners. We just did this great partnership with "Zootopia" as well, right? You can imagine doing super-fun lenses of all the "Zootopia" characters and really maximizing ... Again, Greg, what you're saying, just different ways to engage your audience where it isn't just one way, but actually when you talk about relinquishing control, could you imagine relinquishing control of your brand assets and put them in the hands of not a creator, but people so they can play around.
GREG: Wait, wait, wait. No, actually we're putting them in the hands of teenagers. We're back to where we started on this whole podcast here and who here is a parent that's willing to do that, Grace? You?
GRACE: [laugh] Well, yeah, if my daughter can become the bunny rabbit, like the bunny in "Zootopia" because it's one of her favorite characters, yeah, I think it brings surprise and delight. So in any case, those are some partners that we've been working with that I've been feeling very grateful to have their partnership on, on showing amazing things that can happen on Snap.
GREG: Yeah. Listen, it's been a lot of fun for me to get to watch Snap over the years because I do think it was an incredibly controversial product when it first came out because of the deletion of pictures and there was a lot of sort of angst I think by others. And I got kind of what that meant and what it meant to that generation and what it's evolved into and the products you created. And it's a boundary breaker at some level. There's really something ...
GRACE: Aw, thanks, Greg.
GREG: They've always tried to be really unique to what they were doing.
GRACE: Yeah. And we still are. I think we really want to be a place where people can be their real selves, real friends, try new things. And yeah, thank you, Greg, for saying that because yeah, we try really hard as a company to be that.
GREG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and listen, you're generous to come on here and share some of that. So Grace, we can't thank you enough. Appreciate it.
GRACE: Oh, Greg, thank you so much. It's been so fun. And you've said I can come back when I'm ready to talk about Specs.
GREG: I know, but we need advance ... We need advance showing of Specs.
GRACE: You've got it.
GREG: Did I qualify that? Okay.
GRACE: Absolutely. You got it.
GREG: Okay. Okay, good. Thank you.
GRACE: Thank you so much. Thank you, Greg.
GREG: Thanks again to Grace Kao for coming on Building Better CMOs. Check the description of this episode for links to connect with Grace.
If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with Bob Sherwin, the Chief Marketing & Commercial officer at Zoe. We talked about the power of new channels like podcasting, whether the CMO should own customer experience, and the three marketing strategies that actually matter. You can find that episode on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're hearing me now.
Now at the Marketing + Media Alliance, we are working to make marketing matter more through conferences, research, and education. If you want to know more, visit mmaglobal.com. You can also email me directly, greg@mmaglobal.com.
Now don't forget, Building Better CMOs is now on YouTube. Just go to bettercmos.com/youtube to start watching. Our producer and podcast consultant is Eric Johnson from lightningpod.fm. Artwork is by Jason Chase, and a very special thanks to Angela Gray and Dan Whiting.
This is Greg Stuart. I'll see you in two weeks.
GRACE: Yeah. I mean, I would say there are the hard KPIs where you can measure. We have obviously insights tools, there are third-party measurement partners just so you don't grade your own homework, of course there's all those. But I still, I guess you're catching me on a day where I'm feeling ... I don't know. I still think there's the soft KPIs in the sense of where you've made something that makes you feel super proud and the things that you see get shared and talked about, and those soft KPIs for me are just as fulfilling as the hard KPIs.
GREG: Do you think that all of your advertising on behalf of a brand — any advertising or marketing you're doing on behalf of Snap — should always be with influencers or creators and never being done through the more traditional, we hire a big production company, we spend a bloody fortune, we take seven months to create ads. I don't know.
GRACE: I would always say not only both, but do other things too. I think we have to ... We are multidimensional as a brand and our audience is super multidimensional too. There is not one way. And you know what? Again, I feel like in marketing, I don't think we all got in the business of just doing just one big swing and putting the bat down. I thought the fun part was that we got to do many different things and try many different channels. So I know I get the fun in doing many different things.
GREG: Yeah. And I think Grace, I think the question I'm asking myself in this is like, okay, if it is such a big opportunity and the world has really changed, and in particular a younger audience that can be more responsive to that, right? Then should we just commit totally to go down that path and forgo the more classic 30-second television ad, for example, or the banner ad or whatever it might have been and just really focus on influencers. I don't know.
GRACE: I don't know.
GREG: I'm asking the question because it is about maximizing the value that you create for the company. And so if this is a new way of doing, shouldn't we just go there?
GRACE: No, I don't think it ever should be all or nothing. I think it is ... I don't think people want just one one way or to hear from you from just one way. I think people, if there's anything that I've learned on Snapchat where we have like five different tabs, people love different ways to consume, to engage, and even to create themselves. So no, I don't think we should give up the 30-second spot, but we definitely should do different things. And don't forget, Snapchat is an advertising platform in itself too. And we've seen people, they like ads, they like organic ads, they like creator ads, they like them all.
GREG: Is there an advertiser you've most learned from on the Snap platform?
GRACE: Oh. Yeah, I think —
GREG: That's a good question, isn't it? Yeah. Who are the maybe top advertisers that you think are doing really well in a Snap environment as a unique environment? That's part of what we've established here. Who do you think's really the best at that?
GRACE: Yeah. I really love Wendy's, for one.
GREG: What they did in social media for 10 years is incredible.
GRACE: So fun. They were also the first to try sponsored Snaps and try chat as well.
GREG: Oh, were they? Wow.
GRACE: And so we love them and I'd really love to see ... I've seen great things from our entertainment partners. We just did this great partnership with "Zootopia" as well, right? You can imagine doing super-fun lenses of all the "Zootopia" characters and really maximizing ... Again, Greg, what you're saying, just different ways to engage your audience where it isn't just one way, but actually when you talk about relinquishing control, could you imagine relinquishing control of your brand assets and put them in the hands of not a creator, but people so they can play around.
GREG: Wait, wait, wait. No, actually we're putting them in the hands of teenagers. We're back to where we started on this whole podcast here and who here is a parent that's willing to do that, Grace? You?
GRACE: [laugh] Well, yeah, if my daughter can become the bunny rabbit, like the bunny in "Zootopia" because it's one of her favorite characters, yeah, I think it brings surprise and delight. So in any case, those are some partners that we've been working with that I've been feeling very grateful to have their partnership on, on showing amazing things that can happen on Snap.
GREG: Yeah. Listen, it's been a lot of fun for me to get to watch Snap over the years because I do think it was an incredibly controversial product when it first came out because of the deletion of pictures and there was a lot of sort of angst I think by others. And I got kind of what that meant and what it meant to that generation and what it's evolved into and the products you created. And it's a boundary breaker at some level. There's really something ...
GRACE: Aw, thanks, Greg.
GREG: They've always tried to be really unique to what they were doing.
GRACE: Yeah. And we still are. I think we really want to be a place where people can be their real selves, real friends, try new things. And yeah, thank you, Greg, for saying that because yeah, we try really hard as a company to be that.
GREG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and listen, you're generous to come on here and share some of that. So Grace, we can't thank you enough. Appreciate it.
GRACE: Oh, Greg, thank you so much. It's been so fun. And you've said I can come back when I'm ready to talk about Specs.
GREG: I know, but we need advance ... We need advance showing of Specs.
GRACE: You've got it.
GREG: Did I qualify that? Okay.
GRACE: Absolutely. You got it.
GREG: Okay. Okay, good. Thank you.
GRACE: Thank you so much. Thank you, Greg.
GREG: Thanks again to Grace Kao for coming on Building Better CMOs. Check the description of this episode for links to connect with Grace.
If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with Bob Sherwin, the Chief Marketing & Commercial officer at Zoe. We talked about the power of new channels like podcasting, whether the CMO should own customer experience, and the three marketing strategies that actually matter. You can find that episode on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're hearing me now.
Now at the Marketing + Media Alliance, we are working to make marketing matter more through conferences, research, and education. If you want to know more, visit mmaglobal.com. You can also email me directly, greg@mmaglobal.com.
Now don't forget, Building Better CMOs is now on YouTube. Just go to bettercmos.com/youtube to start watching. Our producer and podcast consultant is Eric Johnson from lightningpod.fm. Artwork is by Jason Chase, and a very special thanks to Angela Gray and Dan Whiting.
This is Greg Stuart. I'll see you in two weeks.